I think I’ll agree that Democrats no longer “get” the new environment.

The media and social media landscape is changing, as this article points out. We are living in the era of YouTube and influencers. I agree. But saying that the entire problem of why democrats suck at elections comes down to “learn the social media game” is simplistic and misses other parts of the or.

First of all, I’d argue that the democrats are still living in the 1990s as far as policy goes. The concerns that they have as major initiatives just don’t seem to match up to what I hear people talking about. People are worried about declining standards of living, ghost jobs, affordable housing, and student loans. The Biden administration was worried about green energy, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, Ukraine, DEI, and Our Democracy.

Even when campaigning, they barely bothered to nod in the direction of concerns people have. They were all over project 2025, or Schedule F, or Trump hates (whatever group were pandering to right now). They were careful to be pro Palestine. But they never got around to anything average Americans would care about. They just sort of assumed “I hate Trump” was sufficient. It wasn’t, and won’t be next time. Our Democracy doesn’t matter to people watching their kids struggle to afford housing. It doesn’t matter to people sitting around the kitchen table trying to squeeze yet more money out of their budget to afford groceries.

And even when they did have a message that would have resonated with average people, their ability to actually do anything significant about the issues that matter to the average person is practically nil. There’s no real chance that the majority of students will see student loan relief. There’s even less chance that housing will be more affordable anytime soon. Prices are still high.

As someone who grew up with it, that’s what turned me off of it. Back in the day, it was perfectly willing to try new things, to say things about culture and science and ask deep questions about reality and so on. At present, it goes in one of two directions.

First you have the Nostalgia Trek, which seems mostly interested in catering to people who like Star Trek as an aesthetic setting. People who like the setting of Guys who Explore Space and Lecture Aliens about Neoliberalism. They like the aliens, the ships, the politics, they like to see their favorite childhood stories and heroes on their TVs. But they have no interest in the ethos of Trek, or even Science Fiction as a genre of fiction. This version in essence is Sci-Fi for people who want to pretend to like sci-fi but hate all the stuff that makes it actually science fiction— the hard science, the philosophical questions about reality and the questions about things that modern Americans take for granted. To them the Federation is America, but in space, and Starfleet is the USA military who are always right and never fail.

Second, you have the too-cool-for-school Trek. It’s not any more willing to tweak noses or really shake things up. They just decided they don’t like the old Trek aesthetic and therefore “deconstruct” it, or lampoon it, or “subvert” it in utterly predictable ways. What if … the federation is the bad guys? What if we totally glued teeth all over Klingons for no reason? What if we suddenly discovered the Roger’s and Hammerstein Nebula? Or turned Spock human just before his mother comes to visit. None of this is deep or interesting it’s more like a kid deciding it’s cool to deface a painting.